Hotel, airline, and destination preferences may vary, but all travelers have one thing in common: they want the lowest priced airfare for the ticket they’re eyeing. And luckily, there’s a simple way to use human know-how to outsmart artificial intelligence-powered browsers and score the cheapest deal possible.
All travelers have to do is switch the website’s country setting setting to a different region, Thomas Davy, the CEO of proactive cloud optimization company Cloudexmachina.io, told Travel + Leisure.
Davy said companies are employing AI-powered browsers and devices that are “canceling all your money-saving efforts.” But switching the country setting is as simple as changing the URL and doesn’t even require a VPN.
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Another way to finagle the system is to not browse for airfare or hotels on online booking engines like Kayak while connected to your social media accounts, including Google. This way, AI won’t be able to see previous activity and figure out you are actually logging in from the United States.
“Book them by starting with a clean slate on a new device that has no traces of travel plans and is not connected to your social media profiles,” Davy said. “This is because Meta and Google, for example, can track your activity outside their apps.
“Website cookies, powered by AI, will have traced your destination interest, hence why you see hotel offers on your Facebook feed now, for instance,” he added. “You can outsmart AI by using a long-forgotten phone in your drawer or a dusty old laptop to complete your booking.”
Davy said travelers may then have to practice being patient and wait an hour before booking.
“Booking systems perceive intense research as high interest and may freeze those options in your virtual shopping cart,” he said. “If you look for the same flights or hotel rooms from a new device, it does not know you are the same person and may offer you other, more expensive options.”
Eager to test out the theory, this T+L writer searched for a stay at the Four Seasons Hotel George V in Paris for Jan. 20, 2026. When searching Expedia on the U.S. site, the stay came in at $3,356. But when I switched to the booking company’s Mexico site, I was able to find a room for just 56,087 pesos ($3,042.14), a nearly 10 percent savings.
“Americans are among the richest tourists and travel companies would rather offer larger savings margins to price-sensitive customers,” Davy said.
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